Mitt Romney ad in Spanish attacks health care law
By Bobby Caina Calvan
| GLOBE STAFF AUGUST 06, 2012
WOODBRIDGE, Va. — In his first Spanish-language spot heading into the general election, Mitt Romney vowed to end “Obamacare’’ on Day One of his presidency — a bold and risky message he continues to deliver to Latino voters, who overwhelmingly back the federal health care law.
WOODBRIDGE, Va. — In his first Spanish-language spot heading into the general election, Mitt Romney vowed to end “Obamacare’’ on Day One of his presidency — a bold and risky message he continues to deliver to Latino voters, who overwhelmingly back the federal health care law.
President Obama, meanwhile, hopes the intense concern over health care issues expressed by Latinos will help coalesce his support among the critical voting bloc. To extol the benefits of his health care law, the president’s reelection campaign has rolled out Spanish-language ads in states where Latinos make up a significant portion of the electorate, including Florida and Colorado.
Both campaigns will have much to say about the state of the economy, which stands out as the most pressing issue among most Americans. But for Latinos, the availability of health care is also deeply important — and that concern fuels their strong support for Obama’s health care law.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2012/08/05/hispanics-stand-out-their-support-obama-health-law-which-could-affect-voting-decisions/mIj2VwmA5bwUEYXwskbcFJ/story.html?camp=newsletter
Bill Moyers on Medicare for All
Hospital Chain Internal Report Found Dubious Cardiac Work
By REED ABELSON and JULIE CRESWELL
In the summer of 2010, a troubling letter reached the chief ethics officer of the hospital giant HCA, written by a former nurse at one of the company’s hospitals in Florida.
In a follow-up interview, the nurse said a doctor at the Lawnwood Regional Medical Center, in the small coastal city of Fort Pierce, had been performing heart procedures on patients who did not need them, putting their lives at risk.
“It bothered me,” the nurse, C. T. Tomlinson, said in a telephone interview. “I’m a registered nurse. I care about my patients.”
In less than two months, an internal investigation by HCA concluded the nurse was right.
“The allegations related to unnecessary procedures being performed in the cath lab are substantiated,” according to a confidential memo written by a company ethics officer, Stephen Johnson, and reviewed by The New York Times.
Mr. Tomlinson’s contract was not renewed, a move that Mr. Johnson said in the memo was in retaliation for his complaints.
But the nurse’s complaint was far from the only evidence that unnecessary — even dangerous — procedures were taking place at some HCA hospitals, driving up costs and increasing profits.
HCA, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States with 163 facilities, had uncovered evidence as far back as 2002 and as recently as late 2010 showing that some cardiologists at several of its hospitals in Florida were unable to justify many of the procedures they were performing. Those hospitals included the Cedars Medical Center in Miami, which the company no longer owns, and the Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point. In some cases, the doctors made misleading statements in medical records that made it appear the procedures were necessary, according to internal reports.
Health: Care a human right
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Human decency requires that everyone should receive medical care when needed. That belief goes back at lease as far as the Bible. It's shameful that America lags behind other modern democracies in providing universal health coverage.
Aside from this humane aspect, it saves money to ensure care. Countries with complete national medical insurance plans spend far less than America does, yet their people generally have better health.
Two new U.S. studies show that President Obama and Democrats were wise to pass the 2010 Affordable Care Act as a stride toward universal coverage.
Health bill signed amid hopes for $200b in savings
Bill builds on law passed when GOP candidate Mitt Romney was governor
Six years after Governor Mitt Romney required every resident to obtain health insurance, Governor Deval Patrick signed a law that many consider the second phase of that groundbreaking experiment: trying to rein in the state’s health costs, which are among the highest in the nation.
The new law — which Patrick signed Monday at a State House ceremony packed with hospital executives, health care advocates, and lawmakers — seeks to keep health spending from growing faster than the state’s economy through 2017. For five years after that, the law aims to further slow spending, to half a percentage point below the growth of the economy.
Supporters say the law could save $200 billion in health costs over the next 15 years by encouraging providers to use fewer costly medical procedures, to better coordinate care to keep patients out of the hospital, and to steer patients to lower-cost caregivers.
“We are ushering in the end of the fee-for-service care system in Massachusetts in favor of better care, at lower cost,” Patrick said, to applause from a stage in Nurses Hall that was bathed in blue light and decorated with the flags of Massachusetts and the United States.
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